


Till Death Do Us Part

by nitohkousuke



Series: Reaper76 Week [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Memories, Mentions of alcoholism, mentions of drug use, needle mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 20:17:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9341504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitohkousuke/pseuds/nitohkousuke
Summary: Gabriel Reyes is dead.And in his death was Reaper.There is nothing left he tells himself.Day 1 for R76 week: History/Decay "What we were"





	

His fingers trace over the photo, winkled and torn and burnt at the edges. Covered in tear stains and blood and dust and every scream and every feeling and every single memory and moment that is Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison. Of every part of the essence that he is convinced is not Reaper.

 

“ _Just take the photo!” Jack grumbles. There's a touch of amusement and embarrassment of first times and new experiences in the tone of his voice.“Don't we have plenty together anyway?” He pulls at the collar of his Christmas sweater monstrosity and rolls his eyes as Gabriel tries to adjust the settings of the camera on the stand._

 

“ _This is our first Christmas together. I want our Christmas card to be perfect. Now smile, mi sol.” Gabriel flashes him a smile and can't help but feel content. Can't help but be grateful to finally feel safe and happy. Finally feel that he's where he should be. That maybe the world will be kind to him._

 

“ _..I'll always smile for you, Gabe” Jack mumbles as Gabe runs over, putting his arm over his shoulders and kissing his cheek as the flash goes off. Both their cheeks dusted in pink, their smiles wide._

 

“ _As long as I'm alive, sunshine. El amor de mi vida.” Gabriel takes his hand and presses his lips to his palm. “As long as I am alive, I will smile for you.”_

 

Gabriel Reyes is Dead. He is dead. He died in that explosion.

 

“ _You can't do that! Jack is there!” Reyes screams because he's mad and he's angry and he's pissed and vengeful and jealous and bitter and a thousand words, a thousands whys and how and what and who's. Because that position should have been his. Because this shouldn't be happening. Because this shouldn't be...._

 

“ _Why do you care? Don't you break up every other day anyway?” There's a laugh and then the transmission goes static. And Gabriel screams, running as fast as his legs will take him fueled by the regret and bitterness that weighed him down for so long._

 

_But he opens the door to an empty room. To a realization that he's been tricked. That they've both been tricked. And just as he turns to hear the explosion exactly where Jack's office is. His entire world goes in flames. In a loud roar and a bang. And a part of him screams finally he is freed from this hellscape. And every other part screams for a second chance. To fix what was done to him._

 

_And there's a small part of him that plays over the last conversation they had. The screaming. The breaking up the..._

 

“ _I wish I never met you, Gabriel Reyes! You were a mistake!”_

 

Gabriel Reyes died. There is nothing left of him in this shadowy corpse he calls a vessel. There is no lingering feelings from a life that ended in flames. He falls backwards on the hotel bed. His fingers brushing over the set of metal ring attached to a chain. Pressing his finger against the engraved words. Against what they could have meant. What they could have been. To the maybes and possibilities to everything he wanted and everything they weren't.

 

“ _Jack. Just one night out. One dinner together. It's been weeks since we even slept in the same bed....” Gabriel puts his hand on Jack's shoulder. It's been weeks since they've had a conversation that didn't end in words they'd take back later. It's been weeks since Jack took the Strike Commander position. Since Gabriel became the head of Blackwatch. It's been weeks since Jack stopped sleeping and taking caffeine pills. It's been weeks since Gabriel's temper and anxiety have gotten out of control. Since they were forced to take the so called opportunities coated in hatred and biases and poison that's soaked into their relationships. Soaked into the persons._

 

“ _I'm busy.” Jack says, popping another pill. And Gabriel doesn't remind him that they're not suppose to take supplements like that with the serum they've had thrown in their system. Because it's a conversation that will lead the wrong way. Because it's not like he doesn't do the same thing. Because it's not like he hasn't been using anything he can get his hands on to try to fix the screaming in his soul. To try to fix everything the government has done to them. Done to him. “Aren't you?”_

 

_And he is. He has so many reports and issues. That McCree kid caused a damn scene and he has to write formal apologies. That Shimada kid is refusing his therapy sessions. Ana's become more distant and he knows Reinhardt is worried sick but doesn't know how to approach the subject. He knows he has an endless list of demands from the government who sneer at him that he should be grateful he has the position he has like it isn't a damn consolation prize for not being the right color for their posters._

 

“ _I can make time for my boyfriend.” Gabriel says firmly and tightens his grip in his pocket around the box filled with all of his hopes and dreams and the tape that he wants to apply to the gaping hole between them. “You're more important than work.”_

 

“ _Don't. Fucking. Guilt. Me.” Jack snarls. “Just get the fuck out of my office now.” The pen breaks in his hands, and Gabriel finds his entire body scream. He feels the serum in his veins light the temper his father gave him into a volcano. Into what the want him to be. A monster._

 

“ _I'm moving out.” Gabriel says, regretting the words the second he says them, and storms out breaking the door frame as he slams the door. It shatters from the tears he's left from all the other times he's slammed the door in the past few weeks. Just like their relationship it shatters from the cracks the world and their luck has dug into it._

 

There is no emotion left in Reaper. No hope. No faith. No happiness. No...regret. Reaper is a mercenary that kills whoever he is hired to kill. Who feeds on the life forces of others to exist. Who feels no sense of nostalgia. No sense of nostalgia as he dematerializes his cloak and drags his fingers of the scars on his upper arms from the needles that the government used to make him into what the wanted. To start him towards the path of destruction.

 

“ _It helps if you're not sober when you go in.” Reyes leans against the wall, his arm over his eyes trying to stop the lights from making his head spin more. His other arm bandaged heavily laying limply at his side._

 

“ _You can't go in here drunk! That's completely irresponsible” The man who spent the last hour screaming as the stuck him with needles and injections and pain and their desperation to get ahead of the rest of the world. As the extraction the desperation of the poor and vulnerable who have no choice but to take this job in hopes to feed themselves and their families._

 

“ _Chill out, boy scout.” Reyes would roll his eyes if they weren't covered. “You don't have to be plastered. Just numb enough to take the pain away.” Just like he's done his whole high school career. Just like his father and his father's father did. Just like his son will do if he has one. Just like every other boy in the underfunded high schools in Los Angeles will do._

 

“ _You're an alcoholic, aren't you?” He can feel his judging stare. Reyes would care but he doesn't. This is the only way to pay for his sister's schooling to make sure she's free from their families history. This is the only way to pay for his mother's medical bills. His father's debts. “You can't just use things to run away from your problems like that.”_

 

_And Gabriel removes his hand to look him dead in the eyes when he laughs._

 

“ _Why the fuck are you here then? Didn't they tell you the survival rates for this program? Don't you realize every man in this program is from the streets? Who's done nothing but run away from everything the world has shat all over them?” He pauses to take a look at the man in front of him before putting his arm back over his eyes. “What's Captain America doing in this program anyway? You're too poster boy material to be used for this program. I'm sure you could get a modeling career or something better.”_

 

“ _..I want to make a difference.” He mumbles. “I want to prove my parents I'm worth something.” And Gabriel can sense something behind his words. He almost laughs at him again because no one here was really going to make a difference. They were test subjects. Fodder Soldiers._  
  
“Good luck with that, Sunshine. No one person can change the way this world works. But I'm sure you can make daddy dearest love you if you survive. Hell they'll probably immediately pick you above the rest of us if you live, boy scout.” They'll give him the higher positions because he looks exactly like what they wanted. They'll give him the best of the program.

 

“ _Fuck you. If you stay miserable and pessimistic, of course nothing is going to change. But maybe, if someone actually tries to be a hero for once. Maybe the world can be a better place.” He storms out and Gabriel can't help but snort. They would never have the power to actually be a hero._

 

They'd been doomed from the start hadn't they? Reaper put his arm over his face, trying to block out the memories from a life that is no longer his. From feelings he no longer has.

 

“ _Don't fucking walk away from me! I'm talking to you” Jack yells out grabbing his shoulder as he tries to walk past him in the halls. Because he doesn't want to admit. He doesn't want to acknowledge. He doesn't...._

 

“ _Stop using me for you white knight complex.” Reyes snarls out because no one does anything without personal motivation. No one is kind. No one does anything without wanting favors or some feeling or something. “I don't need your fucking charity.” And he doesn't want to admit he's grateful for the extra money to actually afford the bills of his family. He doesn't want to admit he's grateful that Jack stepped in when the drill sergeant went extra hard on him even when Jack and him made the same mistake. He doesn't want to admit he's grateful for the conversations they've had in the past month. The way their friendship has slowly bloomed. He doesn't want to admit the fluttering in his heart because there's no way..._  
  
“Gabe.” Jack frowns looking away. “Listen. I'm not going to say I'm not an asshole who is looking for validation for my good deeds. But I'm also not going to pretend that you're a heartless asshole. You're here for a good cause. A way better one than me. Let me help. Please. You deserve so much more than you've been given.” And Reyes slams his fist against the wall. Because there's no way that's true. There's no way he deserves anything. Because he's the scum of the streets. Because he's an alcoholic with a temper problem. 

 

“ _Why do you want to help me? Why? Go play hero wi-” Gabriel screams, but his words are halted by Jack's lips against his. He pushes him away quickly, gaping. “What the fuck?!”_

 

“ _oh god. Oh God. Oh God I'm sorry.” Jack scrambles and goes to run. And Gabriel has no idea how to respond. Is he just kissing him to get him to stay? To make him complacent? Is Jack just doing this so he can keep being his knight? So he can be his princess?_

 

“ _Boy scout.” Gabriel growls grabbing his arm. “You just surprised me. Let me show you what a kiss is really like.” He grabs him by the collar and smashes his lips against his. “You ever call me exotic and I'll kick your ass all the way back to Kansas.”_

 

“ _But I'm fro-” Jack is cut off with another kiss filled with hope and excitement and everything that Reyes thought he could never have the second he realized how fucked his life was. It's filled with all the hopes and dreams he thought he shredded when his father died and his mother was sick and he realized the color of his skin made him less worthy than some kid down the street who tried half as hard as he did._

 

“ _Just don't be a racist asshole.” Reyes grumbles._

 

Reaper can't remember what it felt like to have Jack's mouth against his. What the hickies felt like. What his fingers against his skin felt like. What the adrenaline when they were fucking in the supply closer with their superior officers only a breath away. He can't remember what Morrison's smile that was almost a laugh looked like. The way his eyes crinkled when he was amused and annoyed at the same time. He can't remember the way their hands felt together.

 

But none of that matters? Right?

 

None of that matters.

 

And when he hears someone yell that they were followed. When he sees his door slam open. When he sees that mask and feels that gun against his stomach. He can't help but laugh. He can't help but let his body decay and turn to smoke. To evaporate and disappear before his assailants eyes. Just like their relationship. Just like their past. Just like any feelings he had.

 

And he leaves because it's not worth the fight. That's what he tells Talon. It has nothing to do with the dog tags that fall out of the others jacket. The ones that say their names. It has nothing to do with lingering feelings. It has nothing to do with.....

 

“ _Jack...” He yells dragging himself out of the wreckage. He cries because this mission shouldn't have happened. He cries because they sent them in knowing in that they would die because this is nothing but a damn experiment to see how long they could last against an enemy too strong for them._

 

“ _Jack.....oh god...” He pulls a piece of rubble off the others body and cradles Jack's body close. He doesn't check his pulse. Doesn't check to see if he's breathing. Because if he's not he doesn't want to acknowledge it. He doesn't want to lose the only piece of hope he has left. “Jack...don't leave me. Please. Don't die. I need you.” He screams, holding him close. He sobs, letting everything he's let himself feel pour out of him._

 

“ _Hey......” Jack mumbles. “Did your ice heart finally melt? I can't believe you're crying....over me....” Jack laughs and Gabriel decides it the most beautiful sound he's ever heard._

 

“ _Asshole.” Gabriel mumbles through his sobbing._

 

“ _As long as you're alive...I'll be hear to catch your tears. To make you smile. Right?” He laughs, dragging his fingers carefully over his tear marks._

 

“Reaper!” 76 calls out for him, and he's not sure when he stopped running away. When 76 got behind him. When he decided to even listen to him.

 

And when he decides that he's not going to listen to him. When he decides that he is just going to keep running away.

 

“....Gabe you can't run away from everything all the time.”

 

His mask disappears so he can look at him straight in the eyes, his smile splitting the skin at the corner of his mouth.

 

“Gabriel Reyes is dead.”

 

There was no need for them to keep promises.

 

 

 


End file.
